Tiffinbox

Inspiring Photographers

The Modern Tog Honors Tiffinbox For Third Straight Year

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The Modern Tog, published by Jamie Swanson, just named Tiffinbox among the top 10 photography blogs. This honor has been bestowed on the site three years in a row!

I am humbled by this recognition and want to thank you, my audience and my enthusiastic guest bloggers who feel just as strongly about sharing useful, actionable information that will elevate photographer's craft and business.

Top 10 Photography Blogs Of 2014The other nine amazing blogs are:

Psychology For Photographers
The Law Tog
A Camera and A Dream
Joy Vertz
Photography Concentrate
Photography Spark
Elizabeth Halford
DED PXL
Ground Glass

Please do yourself a favor and visit each one of the other blogs too. I assure you that they will add value to your life and business. They do to mine.

Meanwhile, if you are keen on guest blogging on Tiffinbox, please check out the submission guidelines here. Pitch me with an idea that you feel you need to share with other photographers. Also, if you would like to see a particular topic covered, please mention it below. Your voice matters here!

Christine Tremoulet Discusses Her New Project For Women Creatives: Vivid & Brave

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Houston based photographer Christine Tremoulet described a new project she has co-founded, called Vivid & Brave, for creative women.

If you are a creative woman, running a business that requires you to write blog posts from the heart and evoke your core vision for your ideal clients, you are going to want to check out Vivid & Brave.

Christine and I sat down last week to talk about Vivid & Brave and what it means for creative women.

Vivid & Brave is a labour of love collaboration between Christine & Stephanie. After meeting at a professional photographer's conference in 2011 and working together over the past two years as mentors, we learned we are committed to the same mission – to help women rediscover the parts of themselves that far too often get lost in the journey of life. We want to help you find your voice again, and share it with the world.

From Christine's last message to me, I know there are only 4 spots left in this inaugural class she is offering with Stephanie O.

Find out more about Vivid & Brave and apply to be a part of this new experience. Your business and your clients will thank you for it!

3rd Annual Tiffinbox Award Goes To … Jamie Swanson!

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By now, you've seen the newly designed Tiffinbox website. You've probably also noticed the tag line – “Inspiring Photographers”. It's no accident that I chose that as the focus of this site. Every post, every interview, indeed every review of a product or a service you read hear is qualified by that mantra – “Does this inspire other photographers?” If it does, then, well, it gets published.

This is a real Tiffinbox - from India.The other (perhaps I'm being clever) way to read “Inspiring Photographers” is that the site will be about highlighting those photographers who inspire me/us. I announced in 2011 the first annual Tiffinbox award. It went to the intrepid, humanitarian photographer, David DuChemin. In 2012, I chose Brooklyn based photographer, Spencer Lum for his imagery and erudite blog posts on Ground-Glass.

This year, I ask you all to stand up and applaud the work of Jamie Swanson, a wedding photographer based in Wisconsin. I would be remiss if I just mentioned her as a wedding photographer. You see, Jamie is a tour-de-force in the photography blogging world. You may already know that she publishes The Modern Tog, helping thousands (I am not kidding) of photographers get a grip on pricing their work, managing their clients and finances, producing questionnaires for clients and even coaching photographers to do in-person sales.

Jamie Swanson | 3rd Annual Tiffinbox Award

One of my favorites is her Email Templates For Photographers because it has helped me streamline my business.

Her near-daily email newsletter is written from the heart and from her personal experiences as a mother of four beautiful children. What I love about Jamie's blog posts is that they always seem timely and immediately useful. Her writing is honest, free of fluff and she comes across as being incredibly humble. In a sea of photographers and bloggers, she stands out because she is willing to help. Indeed, so many of the changes you see here on this site are wholly due to her gentle guidance. She is a natural teacher who has your best interests in mind. She, inspires me and I suspect she will inspire you as well.

Just take a look at some of my favorite posts by Jamie:

How to Get Higher Sales & More Clients Using Gift Registries
Should You Look at Other Photographers’ Prices When Setting Your Own Pricing?
Is Your Appearance Hurting Your Photography Business?
How to Find Balance in Your Photography Business
How to Raise Your Photography Prices Significantly Without Losing All Your Clients

5 Common Mistakes That Lose You BusinessThere are a whole lot of other such posts on her site The Modern Tog. Go check them out and sign up to receive little gems of wisdom from her in your inbox. You and your business will be better for it. Still on the fence and want to get a better sense of how she writes? Download this free e-book, “5 Common Mistakes That Lose You Business.”

Full disclosure: Because I derive so much value from Jamie's products, I have signed up as an affiliate partner where I make a small commission that helps support this website. When you buy using any of the links above, I get to bring you more great inspiring information for free.

Tiffinbox Got Audited … By Danny Iny

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It's so appropriate that this blog post appears in October, the month Halloween is celebrated in the United States.

Danny Iny, is an author who quickly became known as The Freddy Krueger of blogging.

He is most recently the author of two seminal and free marketing e-books, Engagement from Scratch and Naked Marketing Manifesto.

Danny, as busy as he is on a variety of projects, agreed to audit my site, Tiffinbox based around these essential questions:

Who are you and what do you do? [01:15]

When did you start the site and how has it grown since? [02:05]

Can you give us a sense of what the numbers are like? [02:40]

Who is your target audience? What do you offer that is appealing to them? [03:20]

How are you getting the attention of your target audience? [04:55]

How does the site make money? What kind of things does the site promote? [08:15]

What is your conversion rate? [10:50]

How do you go about creating a cycle of commitment and reward, asking readers for an increasingly large commitment and in turn offering a bigger reward, and so on? [13:20]

If you could go back in time and give some advice to Seshu of 2003, what lesson would you give? [21:25]

Now, I know what you are thinking. You are saying to yourself, “Gee, this is all about Tiffinbox, what does it have to do about me and my business.”

Well, what you'll hear in the audio applies to you. Trust me. I learned a ton about how to approach my photography business from Danny, even though we were talking about this photographer's community.

[podcast]https://s3.amazonaws.com/nakedmarketing/nm_audit_seshu.mp3[/podcast]

For example, check out his advice on how to leverage Pinterest. Sure, that's something I could do for Tiffinbox, but it could very well apply to our collective marketing efforts for our own businesses.

Soon after I spoke with Danny, Angela Pointon and I collaborated on a webinar series (this is on going and you should totally sign up) with Tamara Lackey, Rosh Sillars and Skip Cohen as guests. Danny's suggestion of offering a FREE webinar was brilliant. Over 100 people registered for it.

This is a candid chat with a guy who knows his stuff. Not only does he ask some very poignant questions, but he gives me some very specific solutions too.

Give it a listen now and tell me one thing you learned from our chat that you will apply to your photography business. You can also read the transcript.

People Still Read, The Power Of Words

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A Japanese proverb goes something like this: “One written word is worth a thousand pieces of gold”

Granted this is a thinly veiled commercial for an online content marketing company, but this video is a must-see for all photographers.

a) It's for photographers who don't think blogging is all that useful
b) It's for photographers who have embraced blogging but only post images on their sites and don't express themselves in words as well
c) It's for photographers who spend their time only lurking on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and don't consistently engage with their audience/target market

Now that you know WHY words can make a difference I bet you are scratching your head about HOW to go about blogging for your photography business.

First, I highly recommend Zach Prez's ebooks – Photography Blog Success AND Photography Web Marketing Guide. These two guides are filled with great information and you can't go wrong. I am plugging them here as affiliate only because I think it is worthy of being promoted because they are so useful.

Still not convinced you should write? Hit this blog post I wrote – Read, To Write. Then go read Juan Mireles' synopsis of Jasmine Star's approach and what makes her so successful.

Other awesome resources for you to consider:

Blog Topics by Chris Brogan and friends – a weekly email that will help you come up with a variety of posts if you start to suffer from writer's block. “For $9.97 a month, you get over 40 topics and tons of writing advice.”

I am a huge fan of Kristen Kalp. Her ebook, “Circus Circus” is like a laser guided missile that will hit its target – writing for your business. It's not just about blogging, though that is covered briefly. If you need help writing even a bio, an about me page, a manifesto about what you bring to your target market that is unique, then you've gotta get it.

I am just getting into this book now – Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life – but it came highly recommended, so I figured I would pass that recommendation along to you as well.